


Breaking the Status Quo

by reeby10



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: Bureaucracy, Gen, Paperwork, Plans, Post-Canon, Taking Over the Galaxy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 13:10:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4138797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeby10/pseuds/reeby10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With nothing else to do, Bob spent most of his days thinking. He thought about what he knew of the galaxy, about the people he saw coming through Orous day in and day out, looking so miserable and frustrated. He wished he could be helpful to them, but they needed something other than a recurrence advocate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking the Status Quo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fadeverb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadeverb/gifts).



> Written for fadeaccompli for Night On Fic Mountain! I was honestly kind of terrified by writing a fic all about Bob, but I think it turned out pretty well. I hope you like it!

Being a bureaucracy guide was a terrible job, which was why it had become the sole purview of androids centuries ago. Bureaucracy is boring and frustrating and the sentient races of the galaxy didn’t want to deal with it, so they passed it off as soon as they could.

Bob was one of those unlucky androids. Even more unluckily, his assigned field was recurrence advocacy.

Recurrences were an important, almost religious, aspect of the greater commonwealth society, but they were almost extremely rare. So rare, in fact, that absolutely none had come through Orous while Bob had been there. That made his job extremely boring, even for an android.

With nothing else to do, Bob spent most of his days thinking. He thought about what he knew of the galaxy, about the people he saw coming through Orous day in and day out, looking so miserable and frustrated. He wished he could be helpful to them, but they needed something other than a recurrence advocate.

When Jupiter Jones came in, Bob finally had a chance to assist in the way he was supposed to.as a bureaucracy assistant. Despite his job though, and how long he’d had this assignment, helping her was not exactly easy. Bureaucracy was tricky even for a trained android, and putting through her recurrence paperwork was doubly so because of the powerful forces that very much didn’t want her to claim her birthright.

But he did his job and he did it well.

Afterwards he longed for more work, to be useful again like he knew he could be, but he also knew it would be many more decades, maybe many more centuries, before another recurrence came through the doors of the Commonwealth Ministry on Orous. That was just the way things were, as much as he hated it.

His daily life returned to normal as he watched the galaxy continue turning and waited for something to do. He would have liked to do something, anything, but work roles, especially for androids, was very strict. He had his job and could do no other without a huge amount of hassle and someone on the outside to put in the request. He knew that was never going to happen.

Until, amazingly, it did. And of course it was all thanks to Jupiter Jones once again.

Her bodyguard or whatever he was, Caine Wise, came to the Ministry one day and requested Bob by name. Caine wasn’t particularly eloquent and he didn’t have much more information for his request than that Jupiter wanted Bob to help her again, but it was enough. Another day of running through bureaucratic hoops and Bob was reassigned as Jupiter’s personal advocate. It was an amazing change.

Getting to Earth was even more of a change. It was so different from Orous. The humans had no idea of the rest of the universe, which was startling and so very _strange_. They didn’t even have androids, and that meant Bob stuck out like a sore thumb and was not allowed to mingle. He was generally stuck in Stinger’s spare bedroom except when Jupiter needed him, but that wasn’t too bad either. It was better than where he’d been at the Ministry in any case, and that was what was important.

It turned out that Jupiter had a lot of work for him, far more than he’d ever had before. Even more than that, he was good at the work and outside of the confines of the Ministry, he even thought he liked it. There was much to do with going over Jupiter’s holdings and getting her up to date on galactic law and making sure everything was airtight against incursion from her enemies, the remaining Abrasax siblings or otherwise.

“Jupiter, could you please sign these,” Bob said one day when Jupiter came to visit the Apinis’. She only came about once a month since she was so busy with other things, but he always had a mountain of paperwork for her to go through.

“More paperwork?” Jupiter moaned, pouting. Caine laughed behind her, but shut up with just a glare, and she took the stack of reports. “What’re these for?”

“Permanent release of harvesting rights for planet 429D,” Bob replied promptly. “I have taken the liberty of retaining ownership in case Titus tries to bully through the bill that will allow any unowned planets to be harvested immediately by anyone.”

“I cannot believe that ass,” Jupiter mumbled, most of her concentration on applying her signature to the reports. “We’ve gotta do something about him. And about that bill as well.”

“May I suggest sending Caine to… negotiate with the current backers?” he asked, glancing over at the splice. Caine seemed to like the idea, judging from the happily bared teeth he was displaying.

Jupiter nodded, looking blankly out the window for a moment while Bob and Caine waited for whatever idea she was formulating. “Alright,” she finally said, turning to them with a smile. “Caine will do as you said. And Stinger, too, if he’s willing.”

“More breaking the status quo? I’m in.”

The three of them turned to see Stinger and Kiza standing in the doorway of the room, smiles on their faces. Kiza had a stack of books in her hands and Bob squinted a moment to improve his sight. The spines of the books said they had to do with inheritance law and government, and suddenly Bob had a brilliant idea.

He waited for a few moments as Jupiter, Caine, and Stinger finished hashing out their side of the operation. Bob was sure they’d be successful, but it couldn’t stop there if Jupiter really wanted to make some big change. Despite years of nothingness on Orous, or perhaps because of it and all the thinking he’d been able to do, Bob wanted her to make those changes and more. And if he could help with that, then all the more better.

“Anything else?” Jupiter asked, looking around the room.

“Yes, actually,” Bob said. He smiled as Jupiter’s shoulders fell a little. “Not more paperwork, I promise. At least not at the moment.”

“Really… Then what?” she asked, squinting her eyes. He could tell she was a little suspicious of the ‘no more paperwork’ thing since there hadn’t been a time he’d seen her since being brought to Earth that he _hadn’t_ had something for her to sign or look over.

He quickly explained his plan, barely realizing how his faceplate was bobbing in his excitement, and the others listened carefully. It only took a few minutes before they were all throwing in their own ideas, fleshing them out until they resembled something that could actually work. They could totally do this.

Over the next several weeks, Bob made several trips back to Orous and a few to even more distant places he’d never thought he’d have the opportunity to visit. It was hard work getting everything done, but he found it was also quite gratifying to finally feel like he was doing something real.

Jupiter Jones was taking over, and Bob had her back.

**Author's Note:**

> Concrit welcome. If you like my fic, come chat with me [on tumblr](http://voldiebuns.tumblr.com/) or maybe [buy me a coffee](http://ko-fi.com/A7274PC).


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